Quick disclaimer: I am, always have been, and always will be a Phil Mickelson guy. Even in the years before I golfed, when I thought it was a boring sport and only watched it with my dad because it has always been tough for me to take naps, and a half hour of golf on TV when I was 11 years old was the equivalent of mainlining a bottle of Sudafed....I still enjoyed that Mickelson guy. Now, 18 years, a couple of majors, a decent pair of man-boobs, and WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR HAIR later, Phil is my third favorite sports 'figure', behind only the Jayhawks and the Red Sox. So everything I'm about to write about goes out the window if Tiger and Phil are in the final grouping on Sunday afternoon, tied for the Masters lead.
I am cheering for Tiger Woods this weekend. Also, for the first time ever, I've hitched my gambling wagon onto the Tiger train, and I feel good about it. I want Tiger to romp the field, 1997-style. And I want him to do it in the most badass way possible. I want him to bury a 15-footer on #18 on Sunday when he's already up eight strokes, and then instead of giving his trademark uppercut fist pump, I want him to just stroll right off the course, maybe even with a middle finger in the air. I can't remember who said this the other day; it might have been Schneweis, or maybe it was Schneweis quoting a radio show, or it might have been someone else altogether at dinner that night (alcohol's a hell of a drug.) But anyway, someone made the comment that Tiger should just pull a Hulk Hogan circa 1996, when he dropped the Hulkamania, kids-take-your-vitamins, All-American role model image, dyed his beard, joined the nWo, and became an all-out bad guy. Everyone already hates Tiger now, he should just embrace it and live it.
Now I'm not condoning what Tiger did, you shouldn't cheat on your wife and ruin your family, blah blah blah.....but don't make Tiger the biggest villain since Hitler here. He's only doing what the vast, vast majority of professional athletes do. He just got caught, and he got caught in a bad way. Yes, what he did is indefensible; but really, you could make the case that he's just a victim of 1) today's obsessive 24-hour-a-day media, and 2) having a wife who cared enough to get pissed and chase after him with a golf club. You don't think Michael Jordan was banging everything that moved during (and after) his playing career? His wife just let it slide, since she was on the way out anyway, and knew she'd get $150 million in the divorce settlement. Two tidbits about MJ that I'm going to drop to make myself feel cool, and disguise them as relevant to the topic at hand:
1. Back when Ol' Roy was still the coach at KU, he used to have golf tournaments at the course I work at now, and when Jordan came to play in it the first time (North Carolina connections and all) and after being told how much the round was going to cost him, he replied: "Fuck it. I'll just take a membership." So even though he hasn't been back in like nine years, he's still technically a member at my course.
2. As a result of these annual excursions to Lawrence, he met a girl, the sister of a buddy of mine down here, and they became fuck buddies. I find the fact that I'm only one person removed from somebody who's banged the greatest basketball player of all time (multiple times, no less!) intensely cool. It makes my torrid affair with Rebecca Lobo seem tiny in comparison.
So ANYWAY, a million professional athletes pull the same kind of shenanigans that Tiger did, so I don't think that Tiger should have been relentlessly crucified for the last four months (and counting.) But since that did happen, and now that he's the bad guy, I think I can finally like him. Tiger has always been kinda OK in my book; some of his commercials are kinda funny (the one where he does his Bill Murray in Caddyshack impression) or heartwarming (the one where they show a bunch of clips of Tiger with his late father, with the song 'This Will Be Our Year' playing in the background) and every once in a while, he lets us see how much of a badass he is (after Stephen Ames trash-talked him before a match, Tiger tore him apart on the course, then responded to virtually every question in the press conference with the final score "9 and 8.")
So even though he was making things tough for my boy Phil, I've never quite hated him like I've hated most of the other incredibly dominant athletes of our generation.....Jordan, Sampras, A-Rod, Kobe, Manning, and Henry Rowengartner all come to mind.
What a dick.
But that begrudging respect was more of an appreciation for the history I was watching, rather than a true enjoyment of Tiger Woods- kinda like the round of Golden Tee I had a couple weeks ago, where I was on my way to shooting a course record -18, but one of my playing partners, the co-worker of a buddy of mine, was busy shooting a -25 at the same time. -25!!! I'm not even mad, that's amazing.
Well now I'm actually cheering for Tiger. And after 18 holes of the experience, I've gotta say it's pretty awesome. Keep being the bad guy, Tiger.
P.S. this new Nike commercial is fucking phenomenal. The disembodied voice of (Tiger's late father) Earl Woods asking Tiger if he learned anything? Did somebody order extra goosebumps?
